Share this with

British beatbox showman Beardyman (aka the not especially hirsute Darren Foreman) has proved you can create all kinds of funky, surreal effects and impressions with vocal and loop trickery, but he never tends to get caught in a groove for too long.

His one-man live shows, in fact, have grown increasingly ambitious. In his latest touring project, One Album Per Hour, Beardyman aims to create a full album within the course of the gig.

It’s a blend of musical wizardry and improvised comedy, aided by (hopefully helpful) audience suggestions on song themes and titles; it’s also a showcase for his Beardytron 5000 Mk II real-time production system. As Beardyman explains, it has upgraded his creative possibilities (even if it has been known to crash on stage – the chaos being part of the fun).

‘It’ll never be truly finished because its potential is limited only by my imagination and ability to fund its development,’ he adds. ‘Every time I test a new feature, it fires off a thousand new ideas.’

These London shows form a preview for his Edinburgh Festival dates next month and they’re accompanied by live visual designs that have similarly been dreamed up on the spot by Beardyman’s collaborator, Mr Hopkinson. The quips, the images and the rhythms come entertainingly fast and loose.